By WILLIAM H. LUERS and THOMAS R. PICKERING February 2, 2012
“IF you deal in camels, make the doors high,” an Afghan proverb cautions. As the dangers mount in the confrontation between the United States and Iran, both sides will have to raise the doors high for diplomacy to work, and to avoid conflict.
A diplomatic strategy must begin with the United States’ setting its priorities and then defining a practical path to achieve them. To achieve its top priorities, it will have to learn what Iran needs. Since the United States will not get total surrender from Iran, it must decide what it can put on the table to assure that both sides can reach a deal that will be durable.
American leaders have been masterly at diplomatic strategies — “building high doors” — to make deals. Franklin D. Roosevelt opened relations with the Soviet Union in 1933 to balance the ascendance of menacing forces in Germany and Japan. He was acting for geopolitical reasons, and in spite of his objection to Communism. Richard M. Nixon opened relations with China to enhance American leverage in dealing with the Soviet Union. He re-framed — but did not give up on — the American commitment to Taiwan to accomplish his objective. In each case, the presidents were acting against the advice of most of their close advisers.
In our own time, President Obama’s initial instincts on Iran were correct: only he can lead the United States to agreements with Iran that advance American national interests.
The first question is how to get such diplomacy started, and on that, Nixon’s strategy toward China is instructive
Before traveling to Beijing in 1972, Nixon outlined on his ubiquitous yellow pad three analytical pillars of his strategy: What do they want, what do we want and what do we both want? The Chinese, he continued, wanted to “build up their world credentials,” to recover control of Taiwan and to get the United States out of Asia, while the United States wanted to succeed in Indochina, establish communication “to restrain Chinese expansion in Asia” and, in the future, “reduce threat of confrontation by China Super Power.” The United States and China both wanted“to reduce danger of confrontation and conflict, a more stable Asia, a restraint on U.S.S.R.”
In the Shanghai Communiqué, issued at the culmination of the meeting in Beijing, the continuing differences were highlighted, but both sides agreed to expand the common ground between them.
In developing a diplomatic strategy toward Iran, President Obama might respond to Nixon’s three questions as follows: Iran wants recognition of its revolution; an accepted role in its region; a nuclear program; the departure of the United States from the Middle East; and the lifting of sanctions. The United States wants Iran not to have nuclear weapons; security for Israel; a democratic evolution of Arab countries; the end of terrorism; and world access to the region’s oil and gas. Both Iran and the United States want stability in the region — particularly in Iraq and Afghanistan; the end of terrorism from Al Qaeda and the Taliban; the reincorporation of Iran into the international community; and no war.
With those assumptions as a skeleton, the shape of a final agreement with Iran is imaginable. The United States would agree to full recognition and respect for the Islamic Republic, and Iran would agree to regional cooperation with the United States in Afghanistan and Iraq. Both sides would agree to address the full range of bilateral disputes.
The International Atomic Energy Agency and the United Nations Security Council could accept an Iranian civil nuclear program in return for Iran’s agreeing to grant inspectors full access to that program to assure that Iran did not build a nuclear weapon. Once international agencies had full access to Iran’s nuclear program, there could be a progressive reduction of the Security Council’s sanctions that are now in effect. Iran would agree to cease making threats against Israel, and the United States would agree to support efforts toward achieving a nuclear-free zone in the Middle East.
It would be important to make arrangements for Israel’s security; the exact shape of those measures would have to be worked out in the negotiations. An agreement in which there would be full access to Iran’s nuclear program, with a monitored limitation of 5 percent enrichment, would offer Israel additional reasons for confidence in the deal.
Both sides would agree to cooperate in reducing the influence of the Taliban and Al Qaeda in Afghanistan; in combating drug trafficking; and in keeping open the routes through which energy flows to the world from the Persian Gulf. Both sides would agree that while wide differences between the two nations remained, those differences must be resolved peacefully.
The China analogy for American-Iranian relations falls short in some areas. The most important is that Mao was ready for an American approach, while Iran’s supreme religious leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, is not. Instead, he is convinced that the United States will not work with Iran until his regime is gone.
For Iran’s leadership, the notion that the United States is bent on overthrowing its rulers is rooted in historical experience: the United States did overthrow Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh in 1953, supported the Shah afterward, supported Saddam Hussein’s war against Iran in the 1980s, and now backs increasing efforts to weaken and isolate Iran.
Reducing the malign influence of this legacy on the thinking of Ayatollah Khamenei will be essential to achieving any deal. Simply “keeping the door open to diplomacy” will not be sufficient. So the Iranian leader must be approached directly, but discreetly, by someone he trusts who conveys assurances from President Obama that covert operations and public pressure have been demonstrably reduced. The interlocutor might be a leader from a country in the region, enlisted when the American president felt the time was right.
Ayatollah Khamenei will have to be convinced by actions, not just messages. Just as Nixon halted covert action in Tibet before approaching China, a similar signal will be needed with Iran.
There is no guarantee that diplomacy will succeed. But that is also true of war. And only diplomacy can offer Iran’s current rulers a stake in building a secure future without a nuclear bomb. Only diplomacy can achieve America’s major objectives while avoiding the mistakes committed in Iraq or Vietnam.
William H. Luers, a career diplomat, served as United States ambassador to Czechoslovakia and Venezuela, and was president of the United Nations Association from 1999 to 2009. Thomas R. Pickering, an under secretary of state for political affairs in the Clinton administration, served as United States ambassador to Russia, Israel, Jordan and the United Nations.
I don't see this as possible for Obama ... IF anyone knew about it .. The Israel loving teabag, the Jewish lobby . . and ALL their VAST power in the US and Israel ... would strongly paint Obama as committing treason and appeasing WHILE bowing to the enemy .. .they just might hang em high .... or at least try to .. ;(
Israel is using Iran to sidestep Mideast peace talks
Latest update 01:43 29.01.12
It's hard to understand how a society that has so impressively brought social injustice to the top of the agenda has fallen victim to our nationalist-religious leaders' criminal ploy and the irresponsible opposition's helplessness.
Haaretz Editorial
The deadline the Quartet gave Israel and the Palestinians for submitting their positions on security and borders - Thursday, January 26 - flew by. It's as if it never existed.
The Quartet's plan, which was to bring the parties from the UN struggle to the negotiating table, is about to be relegated to history's graveyard of missed opportunities. The general positions that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu submitted last week through his envoy Isaac Molho during talks in Jordan are a blatant attempt to saddle the Palestinians with responsibility for the negotiations' failure.
Netanyahu might know that his refusal to present a map based on the June 4, 1967 borders and a realistic land-swap proposal is a surefire recipe for a continued freeze in the negotiations. Any rational person understands that a territorial plan of lesser scope and quality than the one the two previous prime ministers, Ehud Barak and Ehud Olmert, presented the Palestinians is doomed to diplomatic failure and deteriorating security. But worryingly, the diplomatic process, whose purpose is to ensure Israel's very existence as a Jewish and democratic state, is being shunted to the sidelines of the political and media discourse.
Netanyahu, with Barak's help, has turned the Iranian nuclear threat into an impressive ploy to distract attention from settlement policy and the perpetuation of the occupation. He has taken advantage of President Barack Obama's preoccupation with the U.S. presidential elections and Obama's fear of the Jewish right.
Rival parties on Israel's center and left have adopted a policy of unilateral disengagement from Palestinian issues. Kadima is busy with infighting, the Labor Party prefers to focus on social issues, and Yair Lapid, the new immigrant to the political arena, has decided that peace is for dreamers.
The death certificate of negotiations based on the two-state solution is a badge of shame for Israeli society. It's hard to understand how a society that has so impressively brought social injustice to the top of the agenda has fallen victim to our nationalist-religious leaders' criminal ploy and the irresponsible opposition's helplessness.
Israeli PM Netanyahu attacks Gen. Dempsey as Servant of Iran
Posted on 02/21/2012 by Juan
Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak have launched a vicious attack on US Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Martin Dempsey, an American war hero, saying his recent statements “served Iran.” They objected to his statement on Sunday, on Fareed Zakaria’s GPS, .. http://globalpublicsquare.blogs.cnn.com/2012/02/17/watch-gps-martin-dempsey-on-syria-iran-and-china/ .. that
“I don’t think a wise thing at this moment is for Israel to launch a military attack on Iran…”
He also said such a strike “would be destabilizing” and “not prudent.” He added,
“…we are of the opinion that the Iranian regime is a rational actor. And it’s for that reason, I think, that we think the current path we’re on is the most prudent path at this point.”
Prime Minister Netanyahu, who in the past has called for expulsion of Palestinians from their West Bank home and boasted of derailing the 1993 Oslo Peace Accords, accused Dempsey of “serving Iranian interests,” according to the Israeli newspaper Haaretz (“The Land”), which wrote:
“We made it clear to Donilon that all those statements and briefings only served the Iranians,” a senior Israeli official said. “The Iranians see there’s controversy between the United States and Israel, and that the Americans object to a military act. That reduces the pressure on them.”
Likely officials of the far right wing Likud Party were especially angered by Dempsey’s assessment that the Iranian leadership is made up of “rational actors.” Israel and its media agents in the United States have expended enormous resources in attempting to convince the US public that the Iranian leadership is made up of mad mullahs obsessed with the end of the world who would gleefully light the nuclear match that brought about an apocalypse. (All this completely untrue and mere racist pablum.) To have the top military man in the United States undo the work of millions of dollars worth of propaganda must have been galling indeed.
Netanyahu’s charge that Dempsey is “serving Iran” is completely unacceptable and deserves a stern rebuke from the Obama administration if it is not going to make itself look like a complete set of wusses.
Dempsey served in the Gulf War and deployed twice to Iraq .. http://www.jcs.mil/biography.aspx?ID=135 .. during the Iraq War. “General Dempsey’s awards and decorations include the Defense Distinguished Service Medal with Oak Leaf Cluster, the Distinguished Service Medal with three Oak Leaf Clusters, the Defense Superior Service Medal, the Legion of Merit with two Oak Leaf Clusters, the Bronze Star with “V” Device and Oak Leaf Cluster, the Combat Action Badge, and the Parachutist Badge.”
If it is the fact, as the Israeli right wing kept loudly insisting, that Saddam Hussein was a dire threat to Israel, then they might show a little gratitude and respect to a man like Dempsey, who deployed to Iraq to take down that regime and build a new one.
It is not OK that Netanyahu and Barak spoke this way about this man.
Why Barack Obama continually lets Netanyahu humiliate him is completely beyond my understanding. He should call off the March 5 meeting now planned with Netanyahu and let him cool his heels till he apologizes.
And, I’ll bet you that the supposedly super-patriotic Republican candidates won’t dare so much as say “boo” to Tel Aviv over this insult to Dempsey– in fact, the chicken hawks are likely to pile on him on behalf of their Christian and Jewish Zionist donors.
Israel receives on the order of $3 billion a year from US taxpayers, .. http://www.globes.co.il/serveen/globes/docview.asp?did=1000623507&fid=1725 .. roughly on average $1000 a person in the last few decades that the American Israel Public Affairs Committee has dragooned us all into paying into Netanyahu’s coffers. It includes civilian aid. This, despite Israel’s status as a middle income country better off than a lot of European states. If we count indirect US support for Israel, including trade concessions, the sum is much greater. And if we count US military costs policing the Middle East to keep it safe for Netanyahu, the price would skyrocket. Israel is the biggest recipient of American foreign aid. It has never been clear to anyone over here what exactly we get in return for that.
All that fancy military equipment Israel is brandishing at Iran and threatening to use to shanghai American servicemen into military engagement with that country? We paid for it.
It is, of course, Netanyahu who serves the purposes of the Islamic Republic of Iran. His saber rattling has gotten Iranians’ back up and killed what was left of the protest movement. Iranians are very nationalistic and won’t risk a division in their ranks .. http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2012/02/20122208387572989.html .. when they are under the gun from an outside power.
The Palestinian Authority proposed an unprecedented land swap to the Israeli government, offering to annex virtually all of the illegal Israeli settlements in East Jerusalem.
Not only did the Israeli government offer no concessions in return, but – as The Palestine Papers now reveal – it responded with an even more aggressive land swap: Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert wanted to annex more than 10% of the West Bank (including the major settlements in Ma’ale Adumim, Ariel and elsewhere), in exchange for sparsely-populated farmland along the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=59091331
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